String of building approvals mark major achievement for Sydney University development plans

Three major developments for the University of Sydney have been approved, continuing the university’s $2.3 billion transformation of its historic campus.

Construction on a new ‘gateway’ to the university’s Camperdown Campus involving two new buildings and an updated urban design at City Road and Eastern Avenue will begin straightaway, as will another six-storey arts and social sciences faculty on the other side of the campus at Parramatta Road.

The two gateway buildings have been designed by HDR Rice Daubney and Grimshaw architects, and are located opposite one another at the City Road entry to the Camperdown Campus, an arrival point that has remained mostly unchanged since the 1960s.

HDR Rice Daubney has designed an eight-storey wedge-shaped science facility with a stepped glazed façade, so shaped because of its slight throat width of 11 metres and to not impede on the row of fig trees that line the street. It will sit in front of the existing Carslaw Building, designed by Stafford Moor and Farrington in 1960, and, combined with Grimshaw’s five-storey administration building across the street, promises to significantly change the experience and look of the campus entry.

Top: the new LEES1 science building by HDR Rice Daubney
Above: the F23 Administration Building by Grimshaw

Grimshaw’s F23 Administration Building will be located in front of the university’s revered Madsen Building, a neo-gothic style building constructed in the 1940s.

Further north, at the other end of campus and on Parramatta Road, the Architectus-designed new Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences building has also been approved. It will be located on a skinny site between Parramatta Road and the University’s 1916-built R.D. Watt building, and will sit adjacent to Walter Liberty Vernon’s Heydon-Laurence building, opened in 1899. The 6-level project will take on a slight V-shape as it aligns with Heydon-Laurence to the east and the Future Life Sciences Building to the west.

Top:Architectus designed the new Faculty of Arts building to be located on Parramatta Road.
Above: the new developments in red

The buildings cost a combined $187 million and are part of a $700 million top up of the already $1.6 billion the university has spent on upgrading its campus.